Views of Singapore 2018
A small selection of photographs from wandering around this wonderful complex city.
A small selection of photographs from wandering around this wonderful complex city.
the Rijksmuseum is presenting a major retrospective of 19th-century photography – click here
Searching for Frank Hurley along our northern beaches
Did you know that Frank Hurley was a very keen gardener and photographer of wild flowers?
In April 2018 The Manly Art Gallery and Museum will be launching a very special exhibition titled: Frank Hurley – Sydney Harbour photographer: From Circular Quay to Collaroy.
click here for my review and comments on Tracey Moffatt’s exhibition at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
Here’s a few of the exhibitions in Canberra this month.
Exhibition of Regis Lansac’s photographs at Janet Clayton Gallery:
3-28 May 2017 – click here for more on the-ARTMUSEum.com
There’s an article in Straits Times about photographer Koh Kim Chay and his decades of photographing the ubiquitous government flats of Singapore.
Nice online exhibition of photographs – from The Washington Post – click here.
This is an exhibition at photoaccess (Canberra) curated by Ashley Lumb and Laura McLean.
The photographer, Harold Cazneaux is an important early 20th Century artist in the history of Australia photography.
Beauty In This is a wonderful photography exhibition, by Maryanne Voyazis, on for a short time at Nishi Gallery, New Acton.
Continue reading Photography at Nishi Gallery – Beauty In This
There’s a wonderful exhibition at the NGA till 30th October 2016 – Diane Arbus: American portraits.
2016 Auckland festival of photography – June 2016
The 2016 Auckland festival of photography like many Australian photographic festival is very dependent on the enthusiasms and the energy of a small band of people, or more often than not, just one person.
A Further Shore: Bombs, babes and sons of beaches
Manly Art Gallery (Sydney) till 26 April 2015
From Robert Dein photographic collection
There are some photography exhibitions that really reinforce how wonderful photography can be. There are exhibitions that demonstrate just how creative some collectors are in how they choose their collections. This exhibition at the Manly Art Gallery does all that and more. If you love photography, then do not miss this exhibition of contemporary and historic photographs.
I have just read a copy of a wonderful catalogue of a significant photographic exhibition at the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA). Yet again the MGA lives up to their reputation as ‘The Home of Australian Photography‘.
Chances are that I will not get to Melbourne to see this exhibition. However, the catalogue is a real gem and should be sought after by anyone interested in the development of Australian photography during the early 20th Century. (click on the images to enlarge)
Rivington Place, London till 29 Nov 2014.
This a photography exhibition that has to be seen in the flesh to be appreciated. The basis for the exhibition is the unearthing of photographs that have not been seen for far too many years.
The researchers have done a great job of identifying most of the subjects. The main room has huge portraits printed from the original negatives. The people are from an African choir on tour in Britain between 1891-93.
These images are just so beautiful and majestic. They have been printed super large and each person is represented by two different portraits.
till 8 February 2015
image from opening night – by Paul Costigan
The Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is presently exhibiting three exhibitions in 8Q, its special annex located on Queens Street around the corner from SAM’s main building. The exhibition is a triple bill made up of three exhibitions that occupy the whole of the building’s exhibition spaces.
This is a photograph of the monument on the harbour side of Manly to honour the landing of Captain Arthur Phillip in Manly. One problem!
In Manly (Sydney), the harbourside pool is closed after heavy rain because of pollution. One wonders where is the pollution coming from.
At the end of an exhibition seminar in August at the Monash Gallery of Art, we witnessed the NGA Senior Curator of Photography, Gael Newton (finishing September) , handing on the baton and all the challenges to her replacement, the new NGA Senior Curator of Photography (from October), Shaune Lakin (previously The MGA Director).
With contributions by Eleanor Weber
I have just seen this new book on the tables at Readings in St Kilda, Melbourne. So that means you can order in Australia and they deliver it for free.
This is a WOW book. It is about photography, about contemporary practice of fashion photography, and it is published in a lavish and stylish book.
The park celebrated its tenth anniversary last June. This first image is from their own website.
Here’s a small group of photographs from a recent visit to Goulburn on a very cold winter’s day. I managed to take a few moments from the business trip to snap a few photographs.
Click on any photograph to enlarge.
Here are a few photographs taken near the Roma Street Parklands in mid winter 2014. This time of the year makes for wonderful light. Please click on any of the images to enlarge them. I enjoyed this image because of the shadows and the light, the plants were being highlighted, and of course the texture and mass of the rock wall.
I have stayed in many hotel rooms in many cities and towns. The experience of being in a hotel room, although now it is mostly apartments, is usually enjoyable but always with a tinge of weird. You enter this borrowed space and establish your presence while always being aware of the temporary nature of your stay.
It was while visiting the Canberra Gallery for another exhibition that we spotted these six works by the artist/photographer Ian North. On exhibition were colour photographs from Ian’s suite of 24 images, the Canberra Suite Series (1981).
I hear debates about the nature of photography today given all the digital technology and all that stuff. The technology may change, as it always has done, but capturing the image and the light and then publishing it in a beautiful format is what has always been about and remains so in the 21st Century. Photography remains a strong and powerful medium.
Black and White photography when it is done well, and the photographer engages with the subject, remains one of the wonders to be enjoyed on the walls of a gallery. The online image serves to introduce you to the works, but visiting a gallery exhibition to see the actual printed image remains a must for any lover of photography.
It was while visiting the Stills Gallery in Sydney to see the works by Mary Ellen Mark, that I was totally struck by the ambiance of a photograph titled: The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California, USA, 1987. (it is reproduced larger below)
Besides the stand out nature of the total composition, the car, the children, the hands around the woman, it was the faces on the mother and the daughter that glued me for much more than the standard time one usually spends with any work in an exhibition. Then I could not help but return to it several times.
National Gallery of Australia
Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s–1940s
21 February – 22 June 2014, free entry to exhibition (note the exhibition is on two floors)
Continue reading Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia
This exhibition of the photography of Sue Ford (1943 – 2009) at the Victorian State Gallery (National Gallery of Victoria*) is a curious one. Click here – for their media statements.
As an opening statement I have to say that I did not find this exhibition as satisfactory as I had anticipated. Parts of the exhibition worked reasonably well, whereas other sections look as if someone was not sure what to do with the work, or that maybe they did not understand Sue Ford’s work.
I have reviewed works by Trent Parke previously — click here. This new series, The Camera is God, is an exhibition worth seeing. Recommended. The series was staged first at the 2014 Adelaide Biennial where the format was slightly different.
Why Getty Going Free Is Such a Big Deal
The company has made tens of millions of its photos free for noncommercial use.
To quote from The Atlantic:
Exhibition title: Australian vernacular photography
Once again, the Art Gallery of NSW has brought together an interesting exhibition of Australian photography – click here.
This is a must see for anyone with interests in photography. Judy Annear, the curator, has brought some gems from their vast collection.
University of Sydney, Macleay Museum
This exhibition is advertised as being of historic photographs from the Pacific spanning a century beginning from the late 1850s. With these words both in advertising and online, the expectations were for an extensive exhibition of photographs of the pacific islands.
The photographs of architecture of the Post-Soviet era.
There’s a review in WIRED online of a book. To quote: Frank Herfort moved to Moscow with no intention to make a book. Like all photographers, the German-born artist always keeps one eye open for potential subjects, but making a book of architectural photos was never the plan. “While scouting the new city for myself, I began to notice these amazing buildings.”
NGA Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s–1940s
from the Canberra Times, March 8 2014, comes this review by Sacha Grishin. Click here for the review.
For more on the National Gallery of Australia exhibition – click here. Note that the exhibition is free and runs till 22 June 2014.
An article appeared in the Fairfax press on March 1st 2014 under the by-line: A long-lost print has rewritten the story behind one of Australia’s most famous photographs.
Alas, the story was not quite a full representation of the facts!
Perth Festival, Anne Ferran: Shadow Land
A third in the series of monitoring some of the visual arts in the Perth Festival.
There’s a review in the Guardian online of Anne Ferran‘s Shadow Land at the Lawrence Wilson art gallery – posted by Andrew Frost.
Andrew Merry photographs
Edgewood no. 1, from the series “Edgewood: Aerial Photography of New Suburbia” (2006); originally seen at the Museum of Sydney, 2010
Toward Indonesia: A Century of Indonesia photographed.
We have published on our other website a new version of the 1991 publication:
Toward Indonesia: A Century of Indonesia Photographed.
Congratulations to Ian North for his Australia Day Award, announced today.
Ian is now Ian North AM.
Ian is a former curator, Including the inaugural curator of photography at the National Gallery of Australia, an independent artist and writer based in Adelaide. He is represented in many public collections around Australia including Artbank, National Gallery of Australia and National Gallery of Victoria. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Visual Arts at the University of South Australia.
Congratulations to Trent Parke
A winner of the inaugural Prudential Eye Award for Photography
An artist featured in a previous review here on ‘A Word or Two’ has been announced as the winner of the Prudential Eye Award for Photography.
Would we all have wings to zoom around the globe to visit a few photography exhibitions. But wait, that’s called the internet. So here are a few of the current exhibitions presently with an online presence that we have looked into recently.
This is a fairly random selection and we are linking to those where there is an accessible online exhibition. If a gallery has used flash and therefore there are no direct links, unfortunately they are fairly useless for this exercise. Shame there are a few that miss out, such as one of my favourite Singapore galleries: Gallery 2902. Continue reading photography
Lens Love, The Tender Gaze of six Canberra Region Photographers.
It is indeed wonderful for the Canberra Museum and Gallery to have an exhibition of photography. The exhibition brings together the works of six local photographers, most connected through the Canberra School of Art.
Trent Parke, The Christmas Tree Bucket, at the NGA
December 2013 — February 2014
The National Gallery of Australia has launched an exhibition of Trent Parke’s The Christmas Tree Bucket in their dedicated photographic gallery.
This exhibition is for those of us who love a great photograph (or two), who love things quirky, who like to smile when looking at an exhibition, and maybe enjoy the occasional laugh out loud.
A collection of photographs gathered more or less locally.
there two more collections – here and here
We were traveling back from Sydney and made a stop over for dinner at Bowral. There’s a good take away noodle shop half way down the main street.
I took the time to observe the Christmas decoration in the local shops. (click on any image to enlarge them)
Here’s an image in the R M Williams window.
Joy before the object
Not sure if you have noticed, but dedicated photography galleries within our public art galleries are now reduced to two. There is one in the Art Gallery of NSW and one at the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra). The one upstairs at the National Art Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, recently just evaporated and the space taken over for other stuff. That’s it! Our otherwise creative and intelligent gallery directors still do not get it. People love photography and will travel to see photography exhibitions, and while they are in the building will look through other exhibitions.
So it was wonderful to visit the Art Gallery of NSW last week and to see a very interesting exhibition of photography, titled Joy before the object.
How photographing events stops us living them
I identify with Jillian’s comments – click here or on the image above. Many times I witness people wander up to an art work or some scene, and without any thought, they quickly pull up the camera, iphone or ipad, snap and then walk on. They do not even take the time to really look. Got the photo, move onto the next one.
Outside the National Gallery of Australia, people sometimes bring their car to a halt, jump out, snap a few, then it is back in the car and off they go. They have done the National Gallery! and have the photo to prove it. Where was the enjoyment in all that.
For travelers of urban space and cities, there is nothing more enjoyable as roaming streets and observing both the unusual and the ordinary. In reality most of time the ordinary and the unusual do tend to blend. Anyone who is an observer of street behaviour realises that there is not much that is ordinary about how people behave as they wander, rush or simply promenade about our urban thoroughfares. The streets of our cities are packed with these constantly changing tableaux. The realities are fun to observe as well as those things we conjure up in our imaginations about the buildings and the streets and the parks and the cosmopolitan mix of people.
The Search for Debt and Deficit Emergency: A Day with the Bowral Yacht Squadron
It’s early dawn and the famous Bowral Yacht Squadron sets out for a day’s adventure on the high seas. This is much anticipation about the task ahead!